"We knew all season they were playing well," said Klein tennis coach Holly Cannon. "We knew they had the potential to do it. But having the potential and coming through state is often two completely different things."

Santacroce-Alexander, who lost only two sets all season, defeated defending state champion Jason Lateko-Carla Cooper of Arlington Bowie 6-2, 6-1 in the semifinals.

"We really thought that was going to be the (big) match. We knew we had to be up for that match," Cannon said. "We knew they were both lefthanded. We worked on that before the tournament. We worked on what they do with the serve and stuff. It paid off. Our kids came through like champions."

But in the final, Abilene High School's Karl Bein-Jaclyn Walker made Santacroce-Alexander work for their gold medal.

"The finals was a tougher match than we anticipated," Cannon said. "They (the Abilene High duo) had gone three sets with the Katy Taylor kids in the semifinals and my pair had beaten Katy Taylor 6-1, 6-3. I think they felt good about that. We felt like we should be able to handle them.

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"The first set it looked like that would be true," Cannon said. "We broke the guy (Bein) the first time he served and took the set 6-2."

But Bein-Walker came back to win the second set 6-love.

"I don't know if the second set was nerves or they were thinking too hard about what to do to keep the momentum going," Cannon said. "But it definitely was a wake-up call.

"Every time I would go out on change over, all three of us knew what needed to be done," Cannon added. "It was just a matter of getting over what was going on on the court.

"The last game of the (second) set, I said 'Just go out and play. You have nothing to lose,' " Cannon said. "Really and truly, we did have nothing to lose. We played a lot better. It was more of a game we needed to play. We then came back out in the third set and got back on track. The third set didn't take any time at all. We won 6-0."

The two juniors became Klein's first state tennis champions since Cade Lutz won in 1995. Lutz and Tony Starkey teamed to win the 1994 state doubles title.

For the Lady Kats, the last state champions were Sarah Chester and Laura Simmons, who won doubles in 1989 and 1990.

"I think our kids' reaction was one of kind of relief," Cannon said. "It was kind of like 'OK, we had been saying all year this is what we wanted. We are glad to see all of our hard work come to fruition.' "

Cannon said she would love to see the tandem repeat in 2008.

"It should be a lot of fun next year," she said. "We were just thinking, 'Wow, what could we do if everything goes right?' We definitely have high hopes next year."